2018 Winter Olympics Kick Off…

There are a lot of firsts at the just-launched 2018 Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Most notable, of course, is that the North Korean flag is flying over the Olympic village, which required special legal permission given the long-simmering tensions between the two nations. Also, athletes from both countries walked under a unified flag in the opening ceremony that took place early Friday morning (Feb. 9), which was a very big deal.

It was during those fireworks-splashed ceremonies that viewers got what is likely to be the first of many listens to one of South Korea’s biggest exports in the past decade: PSY’s global smash “Gangnam Style.” The inescapable 2012 hit was blasted in the Olympic stadium as the U.S. contingent made their way in, marking just one of the handful of K-Pop smashes that served as the evening’s soundtrack, which also included songs by K-pop stars Twice, Bigbang, BTS and Red Velvet.